Finding spirituality through art

Before I can begin discussing artworks in this blog, I'd like to put some parameters around my own concept of art and its relationship to the spirit (the soul). Because the definition of "art" varies depending on with whom you're talking, where you're looking at it, and how it's being perceived. It's been debated, discussed, written about, lectured on, and defined by scholars, art critics, dealers, curators, auction house professionals, gallerists, collectors, professors, and artists themselves. So what is it? I don't think anyone has agreed upon one particular definition - but here is my interpretation - formulated during the time I wrote my master's thesis:

Art exists in the space between the artwork and the viewer. It is a movement, a cause and effect, a relationship. It happens when an artwork (painting, sculpture, text, music, etc) causes movement in the viewer - makes them stop what they were doing, stand, look, observe, think, contemplate, consider, debate, become energized, sad, happy, enlightened, disheartened, humbled, encouraged, etc. At some point the soul (heart, mind, etc - however it's experienced by that individual) is moved - put into motion - and is restored to itself or energized from within. From that place of restoration and energy, the soul is then lifted upward to a new place of understanding of either itself or the object being considered. That is art - or rather - that is where art exists.

So for me, for my first post about the meaning of "spirituality through art" and my observations thereof, I will share this image of Tintoretto's masterpiece, which I viewed for the first time in Venice in 1997. It literally stopped me in my tracks, forced me not only to look, but to "see" with my mind's eye the real, historic suffering of Jesus Christ - through not just the Protestant cerebral understanding of what Christ's death symbolizes - but what Jesus, the man, actually went through during his physical suffering and death, as Tintoretto so dramatically brought to our attention. In other words, it actually happened -- and this is what it most likely looked like -- a very real crucifixion in a larger context of onlookers, executioners, mourners, witnesses, and landscape, including heaven's response through the darkened skies above.

And in this process of my own spiritual conversion while viewing this painting, I also experienced a deep and powerful understanding of both the power of an artwork (either religious in subject matter or not) and an individual's ability to receive this artwork and be moved by it. The experience changed my life forever; it led the way towards my confirmation in the Catholic church a year later, and opened the door to a new journey for me in which I began my graduate work and career exploring theology, art history, art theory/aesthetics, philosophy, and the trials and tribulations of the art market. It has been and continues to be quite an adventure.

Jacopo Robusti detto il Tintoretto, Crucifixion